Final Fantasy XV Trailer Spotlights Open-World Combat

Square Enix released a new trailer for Final Fantasy XV highlighting more of the gameplay and giving gamers a bit more of a coherent overview of the story. At least we have some modicum of understanding when it comes to the overall character motivations, as well as some of the influences that propel their actions. You can see what all the excitement is about in the trailer below.

The trailer comes courtesy as Square's commitment to celebrating the opening of Jump Festa 2015, which is an event taking place over in Tokyo, Japan. The entire weekend will play host to live-streams from Square Enix where gamers get to celebrate Otaku culture. Heck, you might even get to witness some special goodies from some upcoming games due out for your favorite game consoles.

But circling back around to the recently released Final Fantasy XV trailer... we get to learn a little bit about what caused some of the conflict and strife in the fictional world Square has created for the game.

We learn that there is a hostile usurping that takes place that endangers various denizens of the city. We also get to see that there's somewhat of a military lockdown on certain areas, forcing the heroes to either stay away or act out in aggression.

Based on the brief setup by the trailer, it appears as if players will have to fight their way back to the city and level-up in the process.

Just like in previous trailers for Final Fantasy XV, we get to see how the game welcomes non-targeting combat and free-form battles. I'm liking how the combat looks so far, it seems to be a mix of RaiderZ and Xenoblade Chronicles X, which is definitely a good thing.

I do wonder how the level grinding will work in the game? It's really hard to tell if players will be allowed to just roam around and grow as they see fit or if there will be a measure of linearity that keeps all the action contained within a certain area until it's time to move on?

Right now it's almost impossible to gauge if the game will be closer to Final Fantasy XII or more on the line of Final Fantasy XIII. Based on what we've been showcased so far, the open world gameplay actually looks like it affords players the opportunity to explore and I think that's a huge step up for the series if that is the case.

Of course, we also can't deny or overlook the ending segment that involved that titan trying to crush the main character... there's a lot going on there that leaves all sorts of questions for gamers. How much freedom will there be when facing off against bosses? Will fighting them be preset to certain moments within the arena or can they be hit at any time depending on the weapon equipped? It looked like at one point there was a cliff-side that players have to scale, so right now it's hard to tell if that's going to be QTE or if players will be able to climb at will. Lots of questions, very little answers.